Former DirecTV Bag Man Discusses Extortion Campaign

from the that-can't-be-good dept

As DirecTV continues their campaign to threaten anyone who bought a smart card reader, even if they did so for completely legitimate reasons, it looks like some more evidence is coming out against them. A former employee working in their anti-piracy division is now suing the company suggesting they forced him to do illegal and unethical things in forcing innocent people to pay up. He says he felt like "a bag man for the mob" and talks about how the anti-piracy operation "was an elaborate extortion racket," that rewarded employees based on how much settlement revenue they brought in. He points out that this encouraged them to work as hard as possible to make everyone pay up, whether or not they had done anything illegal.

Reader Comments

DirecTV worse than Scientology?

I've been reading up on this and from the descriptions of the ex police officer and from what I know of how organized crime works, it's my opinion -- and mine only -- that what's being described is racketeering and extortion.

But it's up to the victims to file criminal charges against the DirecTV suspects and as yet I've not seen any suspects get indicted or even questioned by the Feds.

It's curious: Did DirecTV think that nobody would clal the cops? Did they think that their victims would always believe their alleged claims that having smart card programmers was illegal and to avoid felony charges they wouldn't go to the cops and would cave in to what looks to me to be extortion?